Founders Four
by twelve of malfoy
Summary: In which Harry makes a new friend with many dangerous secrets, the Second War escalates, Malfoy returns, Hogwarts suffers, McGonagall makes an unforeseen request, the quest for the Horcruxes commences, and the new ghost stalks Harry. Fun, right?
1. In Which It Begins

**_Of Dursleys, Dementors, and Dumbledore_**

-

_Shut your eyes and think of somewhere_  
_ Somewhere cold and caked with snow_  
(shut your eyes, snow patrol)

-

Harry awoke to a steady and painful pulsation in his left temple, feeling as if he hadn't fallen asleep more than a few minutes ago. He rolled onto his side and squinted towards the clock-radio balanced precariously on a stack of his school books. It, like almost everything else in the smaller bedroom of Number Four Privet Drive, had once belonged to Dudley; Harry had salvaged it after his cousin threw it down the stairs during a tantrum. The radio function was broken and only got one staticky news station, but the clock worked perfectly well.

Harry groaned as the dimly glowing digits swam into focus. Three minutes of five. Why couldn't he have slept until dawn, at the very least? Until Aunt Petunia began shrieking at him to come fix breakfast? _But no_, he groaned inwardly, flopping backward and rubbing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, _this damned headache had to wake me up. _He'd slept through worse; hell, sometimes his scar didn't even wake him up anymore. Those times he only knew it must have been hurting because morning brought with it a dull, residual ache.

"Sodding scar. Sodding head. Sodding Harry," he mumbled, moving his hand to cover his eyes. It was too late to try to go back to sleep; in an hour or so, his 'wake-up call' would come. Besides, dim gray light was already filtering in around the sides of his window, and jetting through moth-eaten holes in the old blind. He sighed.

Beneath the heavy exhalation and the distant twittering of birds, though, Harry could swear he'd heard something else – the sound of fabric against skin. Yet he hadn't moved.

Abruptly and horribly awake now, Harry's breath went very shallow as he listened. There. He concentrated on the sound. A foot against carpet – and not too far away. Inside his room. The subtle sound of breath over lips that didn't belong to Harry.

_Sweet Merlin_.

Adrenaline began to burn the last fog of sleep away, and Harry yawned loudly, flopping over onto his other side as though trying to make himself comfortable; the movement looked natural, but merely provided convenient cover as the young wizard grabbed his wand out from below his pillow.

The intruder moved again, and in one somewhat-less-than-coordinated lunge, Harry rolled into a sitting position and launched himself to his feet, pointing his wand at each umbral corner in turn. A gasp resounded from the corner closest to the door; Harry swung towards it, encanting, "_Expelliarmus!_"

A loud thud reverberated through the room as the intruder was flung against the wall. No wand appeared, but Harry kept his own trained on the figure, who slid down the wall to the floor, moaning. "Fuck, you freak. It's _me_."

Harry's hand lowered a few centimeters. "Dudley?"

Down the hall, Vernon Dursley's thunderous snores had ceased with an abrupt snort. "_BOY!_" he bellowed. Harry cringed, cold fear washing over him as a vast amount of creaking announced Vernon's attempts to lever himself from his bed.

"No, Dad, it was me! I fell out of bed!"

It was Harry's turn to gape as his intruder – Dudley Dursley, clad in immensely large striped pyjamas and still massaging his head – clambered to his feet.

"Diddykins?" came Aunt Petunia's shrill voice. "Are you all right, sweetums? Did you hurt yourself?"

"No, Mum, I'm fine. Go back to bed!" Dudley called from Harry's room. With more creaking and muttering, the elder Dursleys acquiesced, and soon nothing but silence could be heard from their end of the hall. Dudley, who had been listening intently, turned back from the door to find his freakish cousin staring at him in unabashed shock. "Oh, piss off, Potter, I didn't do it for you," Dudley hissed.

Harry blinked once and then shook his shaggy head, trying to dispel whatever hallucinations had taken over his brain. Luna Lovegood had told him about gobjobbles, once; apparently they were tiny winged dustbunnies that fed on a person's sanity. It seemed that Harry's head was currently hosting a rather severe infestation of said beasties. "Dudley?"

The ponderous seventeen-year-old rolled his eyes and sat down on Harry's bed without asking. "Think we've covered this already, Potter. Yes, my name is Dudley," he said slowly, as if speaking to a particularly thick child.

"What – you – five – " Harry frowned then, and closed his mouth for a moment. "What are you doing in my room?"

Dudley put a fat finger to his mouth theatrically, eyes moving towards the door. "Christ, you poof, be quiet! I came to talk to you. And would you put that – that thing away?" he demanded in a stage whisper, eyes falling to the wand that was still pointed in his direction, but now at a lower part of the body. Harry reluctantly tucked his wand into the waistband of his pajama pants, close at hand; he eyed Dudley suspiciously and moved to the other side of the room. Both boys winced as Harry flicked on his only lamp.

Harry Potter was now fully awake and fully recovered from the shock, and didn't look incredibly happy to have found his much-loathed cousin lurking in his bedroom before dawn. "What do you want, Dudley? I'm not going to fix you anything to eat, you can damned well survive until breakfast on all that lard – "

Dudley growled an expletive. "For your information, Potter, I've lost seventy pounds – and this is pure muscle!" he said, flexing one arm and pulling the sleeve back. The jiggle of fat spoiled the effect, and Harry only continued to stare murderously. Dudley sighed dramatically. "Fine. I – uh – wanted to ask you about last summer."

The sixteen-year-old wizard shifted uncomfortably where he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "What about it?"

"Can't make this any bloody easier, can you?" Dudley muttered, shaking his head. "I want to know what happened. All of it. Mum knows, I think, but she won't tell me. And damnit, Potter, I _need_ to know."

Harry was surprised by his cousin's vehemence almost as much as the request. "Really? Even if it is a part of my freak world, and driven off by my freakishness?"

"Probably attracted by your freakishness, too," Dudley said. The cousins returned glare for glare for a moment until Dudley sighed explosively and looked away. "Yes, you poof, I want to know all about the freak thing."

"I wouldn't be calling me a poof," Harry said, a smirk in his quiet voice. "I wasn't the one watching another boy sleep." That thought made him want to shake his skin like a horse feeling a fly – it was just too gross. Dudley, apparently, had a similar (though more violent) reaction.

"Don't call me a poof, you – you – "

"Freak's losing it's appeal, eh? How about abomination? Psycho? Mutant?"

"Fuck, Potter. Shut up, would you?"

"How am I supposed to shut up and tell you all about the _freakish _things?" Harry sneered.

The blond boy scowled forebodingly and dug his tightened fists into the bedspread, as though imagining himself pummeling his cousin. Harry remained still, his muscles tense and his fingers itching for the feel of his wand, but the moment passed; Dudley's fingers relaxed, and he took a deep breath before continuing. "Just tell me," he said curtly.

Harry's green eyes narrowed; for the life of him, he couldn't fathom why Dudley would want to relive the experience. It was just too suspicious. Would Dudley try to use the information against him, somehow? Maybe tell his parents that Harry had threatened him with another Dementor? "Give me three good reasons," he said, holding up the appropriate number of fingers.

Dudley rolled his eyes.

"I'm serious, _Diddykins_. Three reasons."

"Fine, fine, you arse. I want to know."

"Not good enough."

Dudley made an inarticulate sound of frustration, but then clapped a hand over his mouth and craned his neck around to stare at the door. Harry, likewise, had his ears pealed for any creaking or thundering. When no sounds emanated from his uncle and aunt's room, he looked back to Dudley and arched one eyebrow as if to say, '_well?_'

"Whatever it was, it attacked me, too," his obese cousin whispered harshly.

All right, he had a point there. Harry lowered his ring finger, leaving two up.

"I – uh..." Dudley frowned comically, chewing one blubbery lip. "I won't hit you for the rest of the summer."

Harry considered. "Or kick, or bite, or throw things at me, or hurt me in any way."

"Yes, yes, fine. All that too. Good enough?" Harry lowered his pointer finger, and barely withheld a grin at Dudley's reaction; first the great lump brightened, and then, upon realizing what finger Harry had left up, started muttering threats and beating his fists into the bed again.

"Ah ah ah," Harry said, waggling his raised finger at Dudley, who went purple. "Be nice."

"Sod off, freak. Just tell me, all right?"

"I'm still waiting for your third reason."

Dudley's shoulders hunched forward, and he lowered his head thoughtfully, staring at Harry's threadbare carpet. After a moment, the younger boy sighed in exasperation and in doing so, almost missed Dudley's reply.

"Sorry, what was that?"

Dudley mumbled something again.

"I really must be losing my hearing."

"I _said_ because my psychiatrist thinks I should come to terms with whatever happened to me!" Dudley hissed, lifting his head to glare fiercely at Harry.

Well. This was news to Harry. "Your psychiatrist?"

"What, have you gone deaf, too, _abomination_?" Dudley asked.

"That's better," Harry commented, still blinking owlishly at Dudley. The older boy glowered sourly and somewhat mistrustfully at his cousin, who moved away from the wall and towards the window. Harry yanked at the bottom of the black-out shade; it took three pulls before the broken blind whipped up towards the top of the window frame, leaving Harry staring out at the quiet, misty street of Privet Drive. It was strange, the affinity – almost fondness – he felt for the neighborhood. Strange, and completely without explanation. This was where he had been tormented for years, abandoned, mistreated, mistrusted, attacked –

He glanced briefly at his cousin, who was gazing at him with a furrowed brow as though trying to puzzle something out. "Don't hurt yourself, Duds," Harry muttered, turning his gaze back out the window.

"Prick."

"It was a Dementor."

There was a moment of silence. "The... the thing?"

"Yes. A Dementor. You can't see them, because you're a Muggle," Harry said.

"I'm a _what_?" Dudley hissed, cracking his knuckles threateningly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "It just means you can't – you aren't like us. Only wizards and Squibs can see dementors; they look sort of like the Grim Reaper, only... worse. They don't walk, they float, and you can't see their faces underneath these big hoods." Memories flashed; Sirius collapsed at his side, Harry struggled against the imminent numbness of unconsciousness, determined to hold a spell he shouldn't have been able to perform for years. "They feed on emotions. That's why you felt all cold and miserable when they attacked. Like you'd never feel happy again, right?"

Dudley's answer was somewhat unsteady. "Right."

"That's not the worse they can do, though. In the wi – in my world, the worst punishment isn't death; it's something called the Dementor's Kiss." Harry himself shivered, glancing down at Privet Drive. A car drove past, whirring quietly through the pre-dawn silence, and at the far end a streetlamp flickered into darkness. "It means that a Dementor sucks the soul out of the criminal's body. They don't die; they're still alive. There's just... nobody home, you know?" He blinked and swallowed, even though his mouth was dry. "A fate worse than death," he whispered.

He glanced over and found Dudley sitting very tightly, hands clenched in his lap. His doughy face was pale, and his blue eyes huge and almost luminescent in the murky light. Harry sighed and turned back to the window. Another streetlamp had gone out while he wasn't looking.

"H-how did you get it to go away?"

Harry turned away from the window then and looked hard at the youngest Dursley. Dudley was asking him about magic? Magical entities? It was a complete one-eighty, and one that didn't exactly give Harry the warm-and-fuzzies. "You want to know?" he asked, one eyebrow raised speculatively.

Dudley just nodded, and Harry saw him gulp.

"It's a spell, called the Patronus Charm. That silver thing you saw – " he glanced at Dudley for affirmation, realizing he wasn't sure if the Muggle had noticed it, as caught up in his misery as he'd been. Dudley nodded, motioning with an irritable wave of the hand for Harry to continue. "That's my Patronus. It's different for every wi – each one of us. Mine's a stag. It's made up of happy memories and positive emotions, and it sort of... drives the Dementor away.

"And that's what happened," he said, his tone suddenly much colder. "Satisfied?"

To his surprise, Dudley didn't insult him or make any sort of threatening rejoinder. He just nodded. After a moment in which the cousins just stared at one another, each calculating and measuring the other's behavior, Dudley rose; Harry's bed creaked loudly, and the younger boy smirked in the darkness, thinking it sounded an awful lot like a groan of relief.

"Well, good morning, then, Potter," Dudley said and headed for the door. It was as close to an apology as his cousin expected, and was met with a curt nod.

"Oh, and Big D?" Harry called softly as Dudley opened the door. "Don't forget our deal."

Dudley scowled then and made a rude gesture at Harry. "Yeah, yeah. I won't forget, poof." The door closed behind him very quietly, and Harry could hear the floor creaking as he 'snuck' back to his room.

Harry turned to get dressed with the unsettling feeling that, with a beginning as auspicious as that one, his day couldn't be anything _other_ than strange.

-

Harry had slipped easily into a routine that summer, dictated both by the Dursleys' demands and Harry's newfound desire to be _doing_. Before, Aunt Petunia's endless lists of chores had been an unavoidable nuisance; now, Harry set into them with zeal and without any reservation. He had found, even in the short week he'd been back, that when he was caught up in the pain of straining muscles and aching joints, it was easier to push guilt and grief to the back of his mind.

By the day of Dudley's visit, Harry had already mowed the lawn three times, pruned and weeded the entire front garden, washed the windows, the bathrooms, the floors, and the walls, and had vacuumed the inside of the house daily. Noon found him whitewashing the picket fence.

The sun was fiercely hot that day, and the sky was an unblemished blue. Harry wished in vain that a wayward rain cloud might appear on the horizon, but no matter how many times he craned his neck back to stare up at the sky, no saving storm appeared. His exposed skin was burning quite red, and his hair stuck to his sweaty temples and the back of his neck.

Harry paused and sat back on his heels, wiping the back of one hand across his forehead. The paintbrush caught his fringe, and he cursed quietly, dropping the brush back onto an old newspaper. He was attempting in vain to comb the white paint out of his hair with his fingers when the front screen door slammed closed; Harry looked up to see Aunt Petunia striding out with a plate in one hand and a glass in the other.

"Can't have you getting yourself sick, boy," she said coldly as she thrust them at him. Harry fumbled up from his knees and took them just in time; she would've dropped them a moment later, he knew from experience.

"Thanks, Aunt Petunia," he mumbled, more out of practice than true gratitude.

"Don't thank me. Thank Dudley. He gave up that chicken for you, I'll have you know." Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned in towards him. She still towered over him, Harry being so short for his age. "I've never known my Dudders to skip seconds, and he's far too smart to go soft on the likes of _you_, Potter. Whatever you've done to him, undo it, or you'll answer to your uncle and his belt."

Harry barely managed to swallow back his indignant protests; Dudley was behaving civilly, so Harry must've bewitched him, was it? _That's some opinion for a mother to have of her son_, he thought mutinously. Outwardly, though, he only blinked. "I didn't do anything to him, Aunt Petunia. I promise."

She stared at him suspiciously, protuberant eyes sweeping up and down his grimy body, and stopping to linger at his fringe. "Of _course_ you didn't, Potter," she said facetiously with a horrible smile. "Just like Lily _never_ raised her wand to me."

Harry glared at her, then, but said nothing. Aunt Petunia smirked at his silence, walked over, and kicked dirt up onto the wet paint of the fence before stalking back into the house.

"_Bitch!_" Harry hissed after her when she was out of hearing. It was a good thing both his hands were occupied; otherwise, he'd've been tempted to raise his own wand to his aunt. She deserved a good hexing.

After shaking with ineffectual fury for a few minutes, Harry forced himself to take a series of deep breaths. Moving away from the ruined fence, he sat down in the small patch of shade provided by a young tree in the front yard. She really wasn't worth it.

_Then again, you never thought Dudley was, either._

He shook his head. Dudley _still _wasn't worth it. He'd just proved to Harry that he wasn't quite such a two-dimensional villain. That didn't give him any value.

_He skipped seconds for you._

Harry pushed the thought away and raised the cold, limp piece of chicken to his mouth, his teeth tearing into it viciously. Dudley Dursley never was – nor ever would be – a philanthropist of any echelon. Either he was just trying to lull Harry into believing that he'd uphold his end of the bargain (now, with his headache mostly subsided and fully awake, Harry was certain he'd been a fool to take anything on his cousin's word alone), or he'd just gone on another diet for boxing. _Merlin knows he needs it_. No; sharing his food wasn't kindness. Harry had no doubt that Dudley, had he been sorted, would've gone into Slytherin – and who'd ever known a Slytherin to do anything out of the goodness of their hearts?

When the chicken had been ravaged down to the bone and the glass of too-sour lemonade had been drained, Harry sat back against the tree, his knees bent upward in front of him and fingers lazily working through the grass. Between the lack of sleep, hard work, and this blistering heat, Harry was utterly drained; and he was sure the confrontations with Dudley and Aunt Petunia hadn't helped that any.

_Maybe I should just go to sleep here, for a little bit... it's too hot out, the Dursleys will be staying in the air conditioning..._

No sooner had he assured himself that there was little chance of being caught napping on the job than his eyelids fluttered closed. The last thing he knew was the feeling of eyelashes sweeping against his cheeks...

-

He was alone, this time, not surrounded by his masked devotees. Alone, and tired. Sleep had eluded him, and Harry, in a moment of weakness, raised one hand to rub wearily at his face. He hated the feeling of his skin beneath his fingers – rubbery, inhuman, ghastly cold. Looking in a mirror was worse. He had ordered all mirrors destroyed or hidden.

Once, he had been a beautiful person. Everyone had told him so; everyone had loved him. _That poor Tom Riddle – such a handsome, clever boy. Such a pity he's no where to go, such a pity he's bound to end up working in Borgin and Burke's. _Such a pity, such a pity.

His fists tightened at his sides. Once, he had labored under their misplaced pity; now, they feared him. Even Dumbledore feared him – he had seen it in the old man's eyes at the Ministry.

No. Dumbledore _had_ feared him. Dumbledore was dead.

He moved a snakelike tongue over his pallid lips, wetting them, and tasted the words as he spoke. "Albus Dumbledore is dead. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Dead."

His lips turned upward in a bitter smile as he looked down at an antique chess set. Lovingly he caressed the alabaster and ebony pieces, reveling in the ability of this new body to touch and feel. Touch – one night, long ago, when he had still been Tom Riddle, he challenged his least favorite professor to a game of chess. It had not been just a game of chess; both of them had known it.

Dumbledore had won, and fifteen-year-old Tom had demanded best out of three. The Transfiguration professor had, of course, complied.

The second game went to Tom. Before they could even set the pieces to rights and begin the third, young Minerva McGonagall, then Head Girl, had run into the Great Hall gasping that Everly and Rice were dueling behind Greenhouse Four, and a Hufflepuff third year had stepped in the way of a misdirected curse. Dumbledore had swept off.

They had never played the third game.

"Until now," Harry whispered, his smile widening as he picked up the queen. He tossed it lightly in his hand, and then on a whim threw it high, across the room. Before it hit the floor, he whipped out his wand and hissed a curse at it; it exploded in a cloud of white dust. "Farewell, Albus."

He turned back to the chess board and let his hands linger over the scattered white pieces, before picking up the king. Weak, but the key piece nonetheless. "Your move, Potter," Harry said, stroking the tiny crown with his spidery forefinger.

-

Harry awoke with a start, his scar prickling uncomfortably. It wasn't the first time he'd dreamt himself as Voldemort, and he doubted it would be the last – but the dream had discomfited him. Before, he'd only seen through Voldemort's eyes when something important was afoot – a new development or a gathering of Death Eaters, sometimes even the murder of Muggles like that old man, back in fourth year.

But never – _never _– had Harry 'been' Voldemort in a dream so... unspectacular. Voldemort had been in his own rooms, looking at chess pieces, and musing about his past and Dumbledore. For some reason, it scared Harry even more than the tortures and deaths. Was he getting worse? Had he done something that inadvertently strengthened the link between himself and the dark wizard? Was it Dumbledore's death that allowed such a thing to happen – or perhaps even Harry's grief at the headmaster's passing?

_And guilt. Don't forget the guilt_, he thought somewhat wryly as bile lapped at the bottom of his throat. _Merlin, Dumbledore – I should have been able to protect you, help you, something! You shouldn't've wasted your time immobilizing me! You _knew _they were coming!_

Harry's nose began to tingle and his eyes moistened; he ground his fists into the grass to either side, determined not to cry. He concentrated hard on the flicker of light and shadow over his knees, losing himself in the undulating shapes and trying very hard not to think of the old man. Back and forth he watched the shadows moving, mapping their paths in his mind, focusing –

And then, when he could breathe again without choking on a restrained sob, he returned the empty plate and cup to the kitchen and returned to the fence. Hermione had told him that staying busy would help, back before they left for the summer; once again, Harry was grateful to have the clever witch on his side.

It was almost easy to lose himself in the graceful rise and fall of the brush against wood. Rock music echoed out of Dudley's room above, and Harry began to paint in time with it, pausing every few measures to dip the brush in the whitewash again. He wouldn't think of Dumbledore, he wouldn't think of Sirius, he wouldn't think of Cedric – he wouldn't think at all. He painted.

Evening approached and the air began to cool; a breeze drifted in from the north. The sweat on Harry's skin began to dry, leaving him feeling slightly sticky; he didn't notice. He reached the end of the front section, picked up the assortment of brushes, newspapers, and paint pails, and walked back to where he had started to begin the second coat.

It wasn't until the white paint before him took on a bluish cast that he pulled himself out of the self-imposed trance and took stock. The paint in the can was almost completely gone; he'd been scraping the sides for the last bit left there. The brush itself looked as exhausted as Harry felt, the bristles practically wilting. Harry's knees ached, his back ached, his shoulders ached, his elbows ached, his head ached, and his stomach gurgled a plaintive demand for food; was it suppertime already?

"POTTER!" came his aunt's shrill shriek from inside. "SUPPER!"

_Conveniently timed_, he thought, shaking his head with an almost-smile. The day's work had exhausted him, but he felt pleasantly content, much to his surprise. He clambered to his feet and picked up the newspapers he'd been using to lay the brush on, crumpling it deliberately. He'd just bent to retrieve the brush and can itself when a moving van turned the corner onto Privet Drive and stopped in front of Number Seven, the house directly across from the Dursleys'. Behind it came a chic black convertible that would surely arouse Uncle Vernon's covetousness.

Harry watched, curious, as the convertible pulled around the moving van and into the driveway; there was a woman in the driver's seat, with a scarf tied over her hair and a pair of large, trendy sunglasses on. The boy who had just been in the seat beside her launched out of the convertible and landed to sprawl on the grass with a whoop. One corner of Harry's mouth twitched upward at his exuberance.

After a moment, the boy lifted his head and shouted something to the woman – his mother? – in a foreign language. French, Harry decided after a moment. The woman responded laughingly, though she was obviously trying to scold him. With an impish grin, the dark-haired boy, who looked to be about Harry's age, picked himself up off the grass and dusted himself off. "_Oui, maman_," he said with a jaunty salute, and headed for the moving van. The burly movers had already begun to unload, and the boy joined them without complaint.

Harry retrieved the rest of his implements and then headed back towards the house, knowing that soon Aunt Petunia would –

"POTTER! NOW!"

Harry sighed and headed for the front door. He left the painting stuff on the porch, knowing Aunt Petunia wouldn't appreciate whitewash dripped onto her hardwood floors, and was just kicking off his sneakers (which also remained outside) when he chanced another glance back towards Number Seven.

The dark-haired boy was standing a bit away from the other movers, a large box in his hands, and peering curiously over at the Dursleys' house. When he saw that he'd caught Harry's eye, he smiled a little and nodded a greeting, before returning to his work.

But Harry was frozen on the doorstep, one hand on the doorknob and the other straightening his glasses. He squinted, following the boy's shape.

_Merlin, he looks familiar._

"**POTTER!**"

He let loose an involuntary yelp. "Coming, Aunt!"


	2. Of Chocolate Cake and Fruit Cocktails

**Note: I hope you'll forgive the less-than-stellar French; I happen to be bilingual, but Paris, last I heard, was no where near Madrid, so… yeah. Thank Merlin for Babelfish.**

** -**

_**Chocolate Cake and Fruit Cocktails**_

-_**  
**_

_the more you see the less you know  
the less you find out as you go  
I knew much more then than I do now_  
(city of blinding lights, u2)

-

"I've half a mind to send you to your room without any supper tonight, boy!" Vernon Dursley roared by way of greeting as his nephew came into the kitchen and walked straight to the sink. Aunt Petunia, who had been putting the rolls in a basket, backed away from Harry, looking as if a dump truck had just emptied its load at her feet.

"You reek, boy," she said primly. "Go bathe. Now."

Harry hesitated with his hands still under the running tap. "But – Aunt Petunia, I – "

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Eat in the kitchen, then," she said, thrusting a plate towards him. It had already been filled, if that word could even be used; a fatty sliver of steak, seven skimpy string beans, and the burnt bottom-half of a roll without butter. Harry couldn't help but make a disgusted face as he took it and turned around; this was even worse than usual. "Have you finished the fence yet?"

Harry put his plate down on the counter and leaned against it, picking at the beans with his fork. "The first coat is done, but I still have a few feet left to go of the second," he answered, raising his voice a little so it would carry through to the dining room.

"Why, you lazy little wretch! Our Dinkydums could've had that done by noon! And don't you yell at me when you answer, horrible boy. I'll have no one raising their voice in my house!" Aunt Petunia shrieked back.

Harry thought pointing out that she'd just yelled at him might not really ameliorate the situation, so he just heaved a silent sigh and popped a bean in his mouth. It was tough and flavorless, and squeaked in an almost rubbery manner against his teeth. He pulled a face, but swallowed. "Yes, Aunt Petunia. I'm sorry, Aunt Petunia."

That was his newest strategy with the Dursleys – think all the nasty thoughts about them he wanted, but to their faces behave meekly and subserviently. So far, it was a relative success – prior to the confrontation in the front garden this afternoon, the Dursleys had mostly treated him with a mild sort of disinterest, like a stray dog or unwanted houseguest.

"You'd better be!" Uncle Vernon growled as his wife offered Dudley another helping of mashed potatoes. "Thanks to your dawdling, our food is positively frigid!"

As Harry had just burnt his tongue on a bite of the steak, he really _couldn't _have replied for a moment, anyway – but it was all for the better, for had he had the power of speech at that moment, he probably would've only incurred more Dursley wrath.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Vernon," he said as evenly as he could once he could move his tongue without pain again. "I was distracted. Did you know they sold the house across the street?"

"So quickly?" Uncle Vernon muttered. Harry could hear the scrape of a chair against the floor and then the clicking of heels. He chanced a glance out into the dining room just in time to see Aunt Petunia part the lace curtains just a crack and look out. "That place is such a dump, too, compared to our Number Four. Really, the property values on Privet Drive are just going to drop if they keep letting trash like the Greens into the neighborhood – what can you see, Petunia?"

"Just the movers," she said, sounding like a thwarted three-year-old. "Goodness, they're hiring them young these days. One looks like he's even younger than Diddydums."

He could almost hear Dudley rolling his eyes at his mother's back, even though all he did was demand that his father pass the gravy _now_.

"Boy!" Aunt Petunia barked, and Harry almost choked on a rubbery string bean.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia?"

"Tell me what you saw, everything they said, what they looked like – everything!"

Harry stifled an exasperated sigh at his aunt's incorrigible need for gossip. "Well, I didn't see too much of them," he started. "There was a woman and a boy, her son I think; they came up in a convertible."

"Convertible?" Uncle Vernon's chair squealed backward as well, and he lumbered over to his wife's side to check out the car. An appreciative murmur ensued, and Harry just shook his head at how predictable the Dursleys really were.

"And no sign of a father?" Aunt Petunia asked, ignoring her husband's covetous ramblings. When Harry answered in with a tentative negative, she made a sound like a spitting cat. "Vernon, they've sold it to a tramp! We'll never be able to sell the house now!"

"We're moving!" Dudley yelped.

"What? No, no, my boy, calm down. Your mummy's just talking about prices and the market and such; nothing of interest for a lusty lad like yourself, eh, Dud?" Harry winced at the sound of fat hitting fat; Uncle Vernon had just slapped his son's shoulder.

"If we move," Dudley wailed, "I'm never talking to either of you again!"

"We're not moving, my dearest!" Aunt Petunia said in what was obviously supposed to be a soothing tone, though it sounded rather more like a mentally deranged kindergarten teacher to Harry. She had been drawn away from the window by her son's mental distress, and a quick glance showed Harry that she was currently smoothing Dudley's already flat blond hair frantically. He stifled his giggles with the charred roll. "Would you like more steak? Potatoes? Or dessert! Yes – let's have dessert a little early! A special treat for my ickle Duddykins. _Boy!_" she shrilled. "Get that cake out here _now_!"

"It's always 'now' with you people," Harry grumbled under his breath as he slid off his stool and retrieved an enormous chocolate cake from the refrigerator, along with three plates and necessary utensils. He placed the cake by his uncle and hurried out of the dining room before Aunt Petunia could berate him for smelling again.

She, however, had other plans. "Boy," she barked before he had once again reached the relative safe haven of the kitchen. Slowly, he turned around to face her, already cringing. "Tell me what else you saw, about that hussy across the street and her no-account son."

"Um… well, he seemed really excited to be here."

"Probably just relieved to finally get out of the slums," muttered Uncle Vernon as he dished out a huge slice of chocolate cake and pushed it towards Dudley.

"Dad!" Dudley howled. "That piece isn't any good! Look, it's all titchy, and the icing's messed up, and I don't want it!"

"But – Duds – "

"I don't want it! Give it to the freak! I want _that_ piece!" Dudley yelled, turning a rather alarming shade of burgundy. Harry stared at him, jaw slackened a little, and then met his uncle's gaze in surprise. Vernon looked away, scowling, the next minute, but shoved the plate at him. "And I want my piece to be bigger!"

"Of course, Dudders, of course – "

"What else?" Aunt Petunia demanded before Harry could even begin to process the cake situation. She was back at her station by the window, peering through the holes in the lace, her eyes squinted to better pierce the encroaching evening. "Did you pick up on anything else? What was their furniture like? What were they wearing? Did they swear a lot?"

Harry was quite beyond overwhelmed at this point. Beyond Aunt Petunia's questioning, Uncle Vernon was trying to mollify his eighteen-year-old son, and Dudley, during his tantrum, kept sneaking glances at Harry and occasionally mouthing, _Eat it!_ He was torn between suspicion and irritation and surprise and Merlin only knew what other emotions – so when Aunt Petunia loomed over him like a bony vulture, he was almost grateful to her for having brought him back to some semblance of sense.

"Answer me, you no-good wastrel!"

"Oh! Sorry, Aunt Petunia. I didn't see what their furniture was like; they were just bringing in boxes then and you were yelling and I didn't want," _to face Uncle Vernon's belt_, "to keep you all waiting anymore. He was just dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, you know, like everyone wears. She had on a dress and a scarf over her hair – because of the convertible, see, and the wind, it would've messed it up besides – and sunglasses." He stopped to take a breath. "I couldn't really tell what they were saying, though, 'cos I don't understand much more French than '_bonjour_' and '_merci_' – "

"French!"

"Um… yeah. I'm pretty sure that's what they were speaking." Aunt Petunia was swelling like some sort of bizarre, angry vulture, and Uncle Vernon was slowly turning purple as chocolate frosting dripped sluggishly off the serving knife. Harry wondered if he'd said something wrong, and found he desperately wanted to take the plate of cake in his hands and bolt to his room.

_Oh, Circe, Potter_, he thought with a mental eye-roll. _What a coward! Where's that Gryffindor spirit? Soon it won't be the Dursleys facing you down, it'll be Voldemort – and that'll be with a wand, not just the prospect of a few cuffs 'round the head – so grow up and get over it already! What would Sirius and D-Dumbledore think if they could see you, scared over these fat, useless _Muggles?

Surprisingly, he felt a little better after mentally berating himself.

Aunt Petunia wasn't paying attention to Harry anymore, but had rounded on Uncle Vernon, complaining about the French and how they always ruined everything, including – now – the property values of Privet Drive. Harry was just thinking that if he heard one more word about property values or their ilk, he'd use Ginny's Bat-Bogey Hex on the lot of them, when Dudley caught his eye and made a frantic shooing gesture. Too surprised to stop and think, Harry grabbed the large piece of cake and virtually fled to the kitchen, where he put fork to icing almost immediately in the fear that Uncle Vernon would realize he'd given Harry a treat and storm in to take it away. Certainly Harry needed more nourishment than what little he'd been living on recently – today had been a veritable feast day. Usually it was a piece of dry toast at breakfast and then a supper comparable to today's; but thanks to Dudley's intervention, today Harry had not only had a lunch, but also something more filling (if not nutritionally sound) for supper.

Harry paused after the fifth bite, frozen with fear, before convincing himself that there was no earthly way Dudley could've poisoned it. That sort of thing really wasn't as common in the Muggle world, and really, where would Dudley have found the brain cells necessary to scrape together a plan as subtle as that?

Harry didn't drop dead, and certainly didn't feel sick, so he was left to ponder not what poison Dudley had used, but what drug Dudley was doing, for the rest of supper. While the Dursleys complained about the neighbors they hadn't yet met, Harry went through a mental list of any Muggle drugs he could think of, but couldn't remember one with a side effect like 'unexpected benevolence.' These ponderings carried him through clearing the table and washing the dishes, as well, until a scathing comment from Aunt Petunia reminded him of the new boy in Number Seven.

As Harry slowly rinsed partially-congealed gravy off the dinner plates, he tried to clearly picture what the boy had looked like. Taller than Harry, and a little more filled out, too – but that was to be expected in anyone around his age who hadn't been subjected to malnutrition almost since birth. His hair had been quite dark and curled a little at the ends, and his face was tanned and looked like it was perpetually turned up into a smile. Nobody Harry could think of met those qualifications – and yet, he'd seemed so, _so _familiar!

"You're going to rub a hole in my china!" Aunt Petunia accused, wrenching the plate away from Harry – and wrenching Harry out of his reflections. "You still haven't bathed, have you? Filthy boy, mucking up my kitchen – you'll have to wash all these dishes again after you've cleaned yourself up!" she spat.

Washing dishes was one of the few chores Harry didn't mind, as it required very little thought and let him have some time in which to think. "Yes, Aunt Petunia," he answered dutifully before making his way upstairs, sorting through his mental catalogue of faces as he went.

-

"Anatole!"

The sixteen-year-old sat bolt upright in his bed, blinking groggily as his mother's shout cut through his vague, surrealistic dreams, most of which seemed to involve an acquisitive squirrel and a person made wholly of poppies. "'M up, Maman," he called back, his voice thick and sleepy, as she started to yell again.

"I should hope so, mon cher. It's almost eleven."

He yawned an incomprehensible affirmative and stretched, reaching out for the glass of water he always kept by his bed. To his surprise, it wasn't a surface of smooth, lacquered wood his fingers hit, but a slightly plush texture he recognized as carpeting. Tol looked down and around, puzzled.

_What? Oh – yes. Surrey._

He clambered up off the mismatched pile of pillows and sleeping bags that had served as a bed for his first night in their new house and grabbed a rather wrinkled tee shirt that was slung over a still-packed suitcase nearby. Yesterday's jeans, which had spent the night crumpled under the sleeping bags, soon joined the tee, and after brushing his hands through his dark hair Tol headed out through the bedroom door and down the stairwell. This was one feature he was already intimately acquainted with, after helping the men Maman had hired bring all the necessary luggage upstairs.

Celestine Laurent was standing at the kitchen counter, preparing a cup of coffee. Tol sniffed audibly as the smell wafted towards him, and sighed happily; his mother smiled broadly at him and added a bit of milk before passing the mug to him. He sipped it once, grinned, and then kissed his mother's cheek. "Morning, Maman," he said.

"Good morning to you too," she said, obviously amused by his disheveled appearance.

He saw the direction of her gaze and glanced down at the creased clothing, then shrugged. "No use showering _before_ I get all sweaty moving the furniture around," he said, moving to the kitchen table, which was one of the few pieces they'd gotten set up the night before. "Is that _Le Journal Parisien?_" he asked, catching sight of the newspaper laying opposite him.

Celestine shook her head even as he reached for it. "I picked it up with breakfast," she said. "Which, might I add, you slept through."

He had the sense to look at least a little chagrined as he pulled the front page over. "Sorry."

She ruffled his hair a little and sighed. "You're all right with this, aren't you, Tol?"

He looked up from _The London Times_ and turned his gaze out the kitchen window. Was he all right with this? Was he all right with leaving the home he'd known since his first conscious thought? Of _course_ he wasn't all right with it, at least on some level – but in all honesty, it was rather exciting. His life in Paris had been lonely; his mother had never allowed him to go to school, and the area where they had lived had mostly been populated by rich old women and their spoiled, fat pets. He'd had few friends, and all of them had been considerably older than himself. Yet here, within the first five minutes, he'd seen a boy his own age and exchanged amiable – if wordless – salutations with him. It was somewhere new, somewhere to explore, and with Maman's new job, she'd be home more often….

"Of course I am," he said with a reassuring smile.

A look of relief passed over the Frenchwoman's pretty face, and she returned her son's smile. "Good," she said, pausing to plant a kiss in his mussed hair. "Now, I _have_ been working all morning, so I'm going to go clean up. If anyone calls – "

"Take messages verbatim," he said with a slightly exasperated air.

"And if they come to the door – "

"Check first to make sure they're not satanists come to recruit me or serial killers after your collection of antique porcelain," he quipped. She rolled her eyes, but couldn't hide a small smile. "I _know_, Maman. Really, the way you tell it, you'd think the world was all buttercups and unicorns."

She pinched his cheek a little, knowing how much he hated it, and laughed when he batted her hands away with a protest. "Play nice, mon cher," she said before heading upstairs.

Tol pulled a face good-naturedly at her retreating back before returning to his coffee and the newspaper.

Ten minutes later, as he was trying to maintain interest in an article concerning upcoming elections for the British House of Commons, the doorbell rang. "_Un moment!_" he called, draining the last, slightly bitter dregs from his cup before bounding towards the front door.

He opened it to reveal the boy from the night before, standing on the Laurents' doorstep and attempting with some trouble to keep a rather large platter covered with an assortment of foreign-looking dishes from overturning. "Hello," Tol said, his English only lightly accented.

"Hi," the boy returned shortly without looking up from his burden. "Um, my aunt, Petunia Dursley from Number Four, sent me with these for you and your – " A pair of brilliantly green eyes met Tol's curious gray gaze and widened to an almost abnormal size. For a few moments, the shorter boy just mouthed wordlessly, and Tol's smile turned into a concerned frown.

"Ees something wrong?" he asked, trying to keep the affront out of his voice as the boy continued to stare at him like he'd grown a second head. "Do I have something on my face?"

Still looking pale and shocked, the other boy broke away from Tol's eyes and shook his head, as though trying to wake himself up. "S-sorry," he gasped. "You just – you look an awful lot like – "

Whatever the boy from Number Four was going to say was interrupted as the massive, overloaded platter finally tipped, burying both their feet in an unpleasant mixture of fruit cocktail and what looked like black pudding.

"Oh, just kill me now," the British boy groaned, smacking one palm against his forehead as Tol looked helplessly down at the mess.


End file.
